------Program code: DO-081230-07563 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
12-30-2008 16:44
In August 2007, the Guangzhou Daily released a piece of news that an opera house with the world’s most complex structure would appear by the northern bank of the Pearl River.
 |
In terms of the difficulty involved in constructing the new building, the project could be compared to the famous “Bird’s Nest,” the National Stadium of China.
 |
As the news aroused curiosity among many Guangzhou citizens, the northern bank of the Pearl River attracted visitors one after another. The story quickly became the main focus of the news media, including China View on xinhuanet.com.
For a while, the two strange-looking steel structures became the hottest subject among the people of Guangzhou.
According to the blueprints, the building would consist of hundreds of facets connected to one another at different angles.
Even though the sheet shows the exterior design of this building from various perspectives, many still found it difficult to discern the fundamental principle it followed. The building shaped like two pebbles is the Guangzhou Opera House, dubbed “Mirage” by the media.
The architect who designed this strange-looking building is Zaha Hadid, an avant-garde pioneer in the architecture world who is Iraqi in origin. When working at her architecture firm, she loves to lean against a big purple easy chair as she issues instructions to her subordinates with great passion.
Zaha’s works usually feature incredible curves that go beyond anything anyone else would imagine.
You can call them images in a dream or perhaps from some virtual world, but it seems, at first, to be impossible to think of them as works of architecture or buildings one would actually live in.
For this reason, many architects think Zaha’s designs are little short of insane. However, Zaha totally ignores the controversial comments about her and her works.
As with many of her other designs, the opera house Zaha designed for Guangzhou aroused considerable controversy in the world of architecture. Because of its unique shape and complex structure, many people were concerned that the building would be impossible to construct in the real world.
What is it that makes the design of the Guangzhou Opera House so special? How was this strange-looking design chosen? And where did Zaha Hadid find the inspiration for this design?
Zaha Hadid was born in Bagdad, the capital of Iraq in 1950. According to the laws of Iraq at the time, women were forbidden to work or even leave home without permission. Fortunately, however, Zaha’s father was a well-educated and open-minded man an economist – so despite the restrictions imposed by tradition, when she reached the age of 22 sent his daughter to study in a foreign country.
After winding her way to the U.K, Zaha chose to study at the Architectural Association School of London, known colloquially as the AA. It was during her study at this prestigious school that she became recognized as an architect with talent.
